Back from summer break, every filmmaker asks how to reach an audience. Sky Crompton shares do’s and don’ts for start-up filmmakers building one.
Do’s and Don’ts for the Start-Up Filmmaker
So you are back from the summer break, and back to school [or back to work], and you see your similarly crazed filmmaking friends who wave you over and the first thing you say is, ‘I’ve got this great idea for a script’.
Stop. We have all done it, and will do it again. Sometimes it will be a good idea; many times it will prove to be one of the worst ideas of your life. I have seen top producers and directors produce such misshapen ideas and have a number in my own achieves; it is human nature to be excited by your own ideas. But the key question is, ‘Are they exciting to others?’
Filmmaking, like no other discipline, has a critical mass of logistics and expenditure to use up before ever reaching an audience. So before you go ahead and expend time and effort on your great idea, let’s clear the fog that obscures our audience that awaits us in the future.
I’m going to start with the ‘don’ts’.
Don’t make films for your peers. Okay, you want their respect? Get it with an Oscar. Your peers are a limited audience and are not who you want to be impressing because, believe it or not, most of them are so narcissistic that most will, if you make a good film, hate you till they make a good one.
Don’t make a film about anything you know nothing about, i.e., the mafia, building an atomic bomb, having children, etc. I put two caveats on this one. If you are experienced enough to do extensive research to get you across the believability line that experienced writers, directors and producers regularly achieve for a comedy, for example, if you are lampooning something, you could well succeed. But, be warned time after time. I have seen short films made by people who have no idea of the subject matter, and they are creating beyond what they see in films and TV series, so it is a copy of something that is already a caricature or imitation of reality. Very rarely does the underlying story information from these reference-films crossover in the subsequent imitating short film.
Now some do’s. Do make a film you know something about. Do make a film that informs and entertains with its themes and characters.
After, ‘I’ve got this great idea for a script,’ comes, ‘It’s amazing and universal; everyone will want to see it.’ Stop again. Okay, yes, universal themes are in a number of films regularly and are highly sought after. But will everyone really want to see it?
This brings us to the realisation that to be successful in getting an audience you need to know who they are. Before you get too far down the path towards shooting your masterpiece, stop. Stop and ask yourself the following questions: Who is my audience? What do they expect from a film? What do they need in a film that I need to give them?
Let’s start with the first questions, who and where is my audience? I, personally, I’m so old that I can remember short films such as the Red Balloon, which played around the world and made a return for the filmmaker. Short films were not only a valid form but payed. Then cinemas realised that if they cut the shorts, they could run another feature and thus make more revenue.
So guess what? Unless you are one of the very fortunate few to get picked up for screening on the in-flight viewing of your favourite airline, or one of the few niche shorts distributors, festivals are where you are going, and there are a lot of them in fact. I would go to say that there are more types of festivals than there are genres of films.
Once you have come to terms with this fact, do some research and make a list of festivals that screen the types of films you want to make, and then see what films got in, take a look at the films’ production values, and see what the stories were like. Then you can tackle the question of ‘What does the audience expect?’ Most festivals give you their mission statement [read addenda, festivals can be big money and very political]. Then look at the films that got into the festivals you have chosen, and make a list of the key attributes that they demonstrate in the following areas: Genre/Style, Characterisation, Performance Quality/Level, and Production Values. Also take note of how long the films are and put yourself in the middle of that scale, so if the films ranged from 7 to 13 minutes, you’re making an 8- to 9-minute film.
Now you have cleared some of the fog and can see a potential end point in sight. Finally you have some foundation to reach the event horizon of your audience, and you can start to write a story that is still unique but now has the audience in sight.
Sky Crompton is a Producer/ Director/Writer and film scholar with over a decade of experience teaching film, TV, Animation and interactive media. His feature film, “Citizen Jia Li,” has screened internationally. Academically his research includes Asian Screen and transmedia. He has given papers at media conferences in Australia, Europe and Asia. Having developed animation and film courses his students have won numerous short film awards internationally. He can be contacted via twitter at: http://twitter.com/#!/gunghoscreen
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